Configuration

Every environment variable the app reads, and why most settings are not here.

How configuration works

The app is configured with environment variables, set in a .env file in development or in the host's settings when it is built for production. .env.example lists them all with notes. Copy it to .env to start.

Three things follow from the app being built with Create React App:

• Only PUBLIC_URL, NODE_ENV and variables beginning REACT_APP_ reach the app. Anything else is invisible to it, whatever its name.
• Values are compiled into the bundle when it is built. Changing one means restarting yarn start, or rebuilding for production.
• Anybody can read them. They end up in JavaScript that every visitor downloads, so none of them may hold a secret.

Create React App reads these files, highest priority first. No other file name is read:

File	Loaded
.env.development.local, .env.production.local	For yarn start and yarn build respectively
.env.development, .env.production	Likewise
.env.local	Always, except when running tests
.env	Always

Variables

Identity

Variable	Description
REACT_APP_NAME	The installation's name. Shown throughout the app and used as the page title in public/index.html
REACT_APP_DESCRIPTION	A one-line description, used as the page's meta description
PUBLIC_URL	Where the app is served from, for example http://localhost:3000

Back end

Variable	Description
REACT_APP_API_BASE_URL	The anahita-services gateway, for example http://localhost in development or https://api.example.com in production. Every API call goes here, so this decides which installation the app belongs to

Optional

Variable	Description
REACT_APP_NOTIFICATIONS_CHECK_INTERVAL	The longest wait between two checks of the bell's count, in milliseconds: 300000 (5 minutes) when unset. The bell asks sooner after something new, and at once when the tab is looked at again. See Notifications
REACT_APP_LANGUAGE	The language for a visitor whose browser asks for none the app has: en-CA, en-US, fr-FR, fr-CA, de-DE, es-419 or pt-BR. Unset, or anything else, is en-CA. See Languages
REACT_APP_ASSETS	The theme to use: the name of a directory under src/assets/. Unset uses src/assets/default. See Themes
REACT_APP_ANALYTICS	Page-view analytics: plausible, umami or matomo. Unset means off: no script is loaded and nothing leaves the browser
REACT_APP_ANALYTICS_URL	Where that analytics service is, for example https://stats.example.org
REACT_APP_ANALYTICS_SITE_ID	The site as that service knows it: the domain for Plausible, the website id for Umami, the numeric site id for Matomo
REACT_APP_MAP_TILE_URL	Where map tiles come from, in Leaflet's {s}/{z}/{x}/{y} form. Unset uses OpenStreetMap's public tile server
REACT_APP_MAP_TILE_ATTRIBUTION	The credit shown on the map, as the tile server's licence requires. Unset credits OpenStreetMap
REACT_APP_LOCATION_FIXED_COUNTRY	Pins every new location to one country, as a two-letter code such as CA, and hides the country field
REACT_APP_LOCATION_FIXED_STATE_PROVINCE	Pins new locations to one state or province, as a short code such as BC, and hides that field
REACT_APP_LOCATION_FIXED_CITY	Pins new locations to one city, as free text, and hides that field

Leave the location variables unset to let people choose freely. That is the usual case.

Third parties the app talks to

With the defaults, the browser contacts one service besides your own API: OpenStreetMap's tile server, whenever a map is shown. Point REACT_APP_MAP_TILE_URL at your own tiles to avoid it. A link to YouTube, Vimeo or any other site is shown as its card, whose picture is this installation's own copy; nothing from that site is loaded until somebody follows the link.

Analytics is off unless you configure it, and all three supported services can be self-hosted. The app loads no fonts or scripts from a CDN.

Build

Variable	Description
ESLINT_NO_DEV_ERRORS	true shows lint errors as warnings in development instead of failing the build
DISABLE_ESLINT_PLUGIN	true skips linting during the build entirely, which is faster for production builds

Settings that live on the server

Anything an operator should be able to change without rebuilding the app is configured in anahita-services. The app reads it at run time, mostly from the server's NodeInfo document (/.well-known/nodeinfo):

Setting	Where it is set
Whether people can sign up, and how	REGISTRATION_MODE
Support email, phone and website	SUPPORT_EMAIL, SUPPORT_PHONE, SUPPORT_WEBSITE
Who may create groups and send invitations	GROUPS_FROM, INVITES_FROM
What people who are not signed in can read	SITE_READ_ACCESS: everything public, only the start of it, or nothing. The app shows them a notice, or on a members-only site a way in, in place of every page
Whether anything new may be public	MIN_CONTENT_ACCESS. The app stops offering "Public" where it may not
Who may post, comment and like by default	graph-grpc-defaults/actor_features

The two privacy settings, what each does to visitors and how to check them are described in anahita-services under Privacy.

Some older variables are no longer read:

Variable	Replaced by
REACT_APP_SIGNUP_CLOSED	REGISTRATION_MODE on the server
REACT_APP_GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY	Nothing. Maps use Leaflet with OpenStreetMap
REACT_APP_THEME	REACT_APP_ASSETS
SUPPORT_EMAIL and the other SUPPORT_*	The server's SUPPORT_*. Without the REACT_APP_ prefix these never reached the app

Where the code is

Variable	Read in
REACT_APP_API_BASE_URL	src/api/index.js, src/api/publicClient.js, and the helpers in src/utils/ that build file addresses
REACT_APP_NAME, REACT_APP_DESCRIPTION	src/components/HeaderMeta.jsx, src/components/Logo.jsx, and page titles throughout src/containers/
REACT_APP_NOTIFICATIONS_CHECK_INTERVAL	src/containers/notifications/useUnreadCount.js
REACT_APP_LANGUAGE	src/languages/index.js, through src/languages/choose.js
REACT_APP_ASSETS	src/assets/index.js
REACT_APP_ANALYTICS, REACT_APP_ANALYTICS_URL, REACT_APP_ANALYTICS_SITE_ID	src/utils/analytics.js
REACT_APP_MAP_TILE_URL, REACT_APP_MAP_TILE_ATTRIBUTION	src/components/Map.jsx
REACT_APP_LOCATION_FIXED_*	src/containers/locations/Add/Add.jsx, src/containers/locations/Read/index.jsx
The server's NodeInfo document	src/api/nodeInfo.js